Bloodless Romney Misses Great Counter Attack

January 23, 2012

(Photograph: Corbis)

Pressed about his taxes and, by implication, his personal wealth, here’s what Romney should have said. It would have given him a win in the debates and cleared the decks for a come back in Florida and beyond:

“Yes, I AM an investor. An investor in American companies. American companies that produce American products…that do it on American soil…and employ American workers. Yep, I helped raised capital that turned X number of American companies around, rebuilt them from the ground up…and unleashed them to compete with the Chinese and Europeans. And give American families jobs, money in their bank accounts, futures for their youngsters. Hey friends, let me tell you…I AM PROUD OF THAT!” (Wild and stormy applause – as they were fond of saying after speeches by Stalin in his glory days).

Then, if challenged further, he might have pointed out that those companies paid tax at the corporate rate before he paid tax at the rate for investors. And then really turning on his rivals, he could have said he was proud, not ashamed, to have worked in business instead of being – like their opponent, President Obama – a mere community organizer. And, appealing to main street Republicans, said the country needed more free enterprise not less – and more business know-how in Washington especially.

Missed opportunity, and now he’s on the defensive.

It was the inimitable Disraeli ( not Jack Lang as one Labor Prime Minister stated ) who said never apologize, never complain, never explain.

And, for Godsake, when under attack begin sentences with the locution, “I am proud to say…”

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Bob: i agree with everything you said, except I think there is danger in seeming to disparage community organisation – Romney, at this point, doesn’t want to be seen as 1) against the American small town or 2) as a dogwhistler – what type of community did Obama organise for? I am proud to say I am a businessman would have been enough – the comparison would have killed him. He is unelectable in any case (and the best of a bad lot! Who’d have thought the party of Lincoln, of Roosevelt, of Eisenhower would sink below the lows of a Bush or a Hoover? or even a Reagan?)

“Pressed about his taxes and, by implication, his personal wealth, here’s what Romney should have said, ~ “Yes, I AM an investor. An investor in American companies. American companies that produce American products…that do it on American soil…and employ American workers. Yep, I helped raised capital that turned X number of American companies around, rebuilt them from the ground up…and unleashed them to compete with the Chinese and Europeans. And give American families jobs, money in their bank accounts, futures for their youngsters.”

He probably didn’t say it because it is complete bollocks.

Romney, through Bain Capital, ripped the guts out of companies, decimated the workforce, flogged off what was left for a profit, and then shuffled the profits into accounts in the Cayman Islands.

God help America if he ever gets into the Oval Office. And he’s the best of the GOP candidates!

Looks like 4 more years for Obama, followed by 8 for Hillary if that’s all the other side can come up with,

agree with your comment. All of the Republican candidates are dull and not intellectually confident . The only exception to this is Newt Gingrich and while he is intelligent has other faults.

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Book review – Wilson by A. Scott Berg

The entrenched view of Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States from 1913-1921, is that he was a prophet who wanted to make the world safe for democracy, his vision repudiated by a war-weary American people.
I have a different view. I believe Woodrow Wilson was incontestably the worst president in US history. The worst, because the damage he did outweighs that of any other. This includes George W. Bush, who in response to September 11 started wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Click here to read my review of A. Scott Berg's Wilson (2013).

Mabo (2012)

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